Do you think democracy could survive in a country if . . . . . .

[Barnabas]

IN latin american countries, in which you often have at least 3 different political parties with radically different ideas ideas who can win ( + new political parties ), the newspapers say that that is bad, because whoever wins does the complete opposite of what the previous president did, and in that way the country can never progress.

They say a system like in first world countries, with only 2 political parties with little difference and big consensus is better.

I think stability is better than having a revolution every 10 years

[Dauphin]

I think systems where the two (or more) main parties are fairly indistinguishable appear if you have a fairly uniform socio-economic country. Each party takes the consensus opinion of the many so as not to lose votes from the vast cross-section of society or so as to encroach on the swinging voters in the middle*. Where you have parties with completely different views it's where they are appealing to different voter groups with little crossover - generally a situation created by social or economic divides. I've not really given this much thought, but that's my impression.

*If that situation is correct then, whilst voters don't really have a real 'choice', they are still getting a resemblence of a national consensus in who they elect.

[Lonestar]

Originally posted by Sprayber


Silly Aivo½so, Sweden isn't muslim....yet

Said by Jens Orback, Democracy Minister in the Social Democratic Swedish government
We must be open and tolerant towards Islam and Muslims because when we become a minority, they will be so towards us

[Sandman]

We must be open and tolerant towards Islam and Muslims because when we become a minority, they will be so towards us.

Got a source that isn't one of your lot's blogs?

[Lonestar]

Originally posted by Sandman


Got a source that isn't one of your lot's blogs?

No. I don't read Swedish.

So, I sent an email to the guy's office. I'll let you know how it turns out.

[Zkribbler]

55 years with no credible opposition is certainly not an ideal democracy, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the country is not democratic.

Most large parties are made up of numerous factions, which jostle for control. For example, the 40-year-coalition of Democrats put together by Franklin Roosevelt included members of the Ku Klux Klan, and the civil rights workers of Martin Luther King, the richer-than-Croesus Kennedys and dirt-poor rednecks. The Democratic Party of Texas was ordered by a federal judge to desegregation on the grounds it was not a private organization but rather the functional government of Texas because Republicans couldn't mount a viable challenge.

[Blaupanzer]

Look at Mexico, where one party won forever, but not in the last two elections. Once people sensed that reelecting that party no longer benefited them as much as it hurt, the alternatives were there.

[lord of the mark]

it depends on several things. 1. How much responsiveness is there within the system to changes in elections. In Japan, for ex, there are different factions in the LD party, and they tend to shift in power in response to elections and public opinion. 2. Did the party come to dominance after a period of highly contested elections (Swedish SDs IIUC) or have they been in power since independence, or at least since the establishment of "democracy" IE Japan, India from independence to the late '70s, Israel from independence to the late '70s, Mexico under the PRI.
Was there vote fraud as a means to keep power - Mexico yes, but not Japan, Israel, or AFAIK, India. Did machine politics and patronage play a big role - yes for all the above example. Id say that Mexico was not a democracy under the PRI, Japan, India and Israel were democracies, though with limitations - Freedom House used to rate them a "2" rather than a "1" on a 1 to 7 scale.

Israel of course changed with the Likud victory in 1977. India, I thought also changed, and now has a vibrant party system (though with lower levels of literacy and urbaniziation, there are still significant qualifications to Indian democracy)

[Lonestar]

Originally posted by Lonestar


No. I don't read Swedish.

So, I sent an email to the guy's office. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Got a response:

Dear Mr. Bucher

Thank you for your e-mail. On behalf of Jens Orback, Minister for Democracy, Metropolitan Affairs, Integration and Gender Equality, I will give you the following information.

The utterance in question has to be seen in its proper context. What the minister said must not be understood in a literal sense but from a principle point of view. For the Swedish Government, the task of strengthening human rights and respect for them has high priority and Mr. Orback pointed out that you should drive the question of human rights in the way you wished it should be driven if you yourself were in a minority.

Yours sincerely

Jan Persson

Managment Support and Administration Division
Ministry of Justice
E-mail: registrator@justice.ministry.se

So, to answer the question, yes he did.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Lonestar
So, to answer the question, yes he did.

He did put his foot in the mouth.

He didn't mean that Muslims would become a majority in Sweden in the forseeable future.

[Will9]

One party ruled mexico from 192?-2000.

[Ramo]

Was there vote fraud as a means to keep power - Mexico yes, but not Japan, Israel, or AFAIK, India. Did machine politics and patronage play a big role - yes for all the above example. Id say that Mexico was not a democracy under the PRI, Japan, India and Israel were democracies, though with limitations - Freedom House used to rate them a "2" rather than a "1" on a 1 to 7 scale.

Israel of course changed with the Likud victory in 1977. India, I thought also changed, and now has a vibrant party system (though with lower levels of literacy and urbaniziation, there are still significant qualifications to Indian democracy)

Indira Gandhi was fixing elections, etc. towards the end of her her first gov't in 70's. Though in response, Congress was heavily defeated by a non-ideological coalition (which soon broke up). Other than that, Indian elections have been relatively free.

The recent Congolese (RoC, not DRC) elections are in interesting case study in methods of voter fraud. The main opposition party for well over a decade - during the Mobutu regime (basically the analogue to South Africa's ANC) is boycotted the election since, while, international observers are making sure votes are counted fairly, the warlord parties created a bunch of puppet parties sounding similar to said opposition party. So while the Carter Center, etc. will certify the election as free and fair, it really was not.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Brachy-Pride
IN latin american countries, in which you often have at least 3 different political parties with radically different ideas ideas who can win ( + new political parties ), the newspapers say that that is bad, because whoever wins does the complete opposite of what the previous president did, and in that way the country can never progress.

There is something to this. Investors and companies like to have order and consistancy because if you are going to invest hundreds of millions into a new car factory or similiar type of business then you want radical changes. Especially since it may take 30 years for them to make a net profit off of their intial investment. If you invest and 5 years later a looney like Morales or Chavez comes in then everything can get screwed up by the radical new laws. Even if there aren't radical changes to the law then many investors still avoid the whole region due to the fear that it might happen.

That sucks for the countries like Chile and Uruguay who are doing everything right but who still get tarred as being high risk countries due to being in Latin America.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Will9
One party ruled mexico from 192?-2000.

The PRI ran Mexico from the 1915 Revolution until around the 1980's without any opposition parties. Starting in the late 80's opposition parties were allowed but the elections were all rigged to insure PRI wins. In the 1990's real reforms were started in no smal part due to NAFTA and the reforms Mexico was told they had to undergo if they wanted to get in on NAFTA.

In the long run the Peso crisis of the 1990's was also a good thing because the Mexican government was completely broke and unable to get credit from private investors so Mexico was forced to go to the US government, hat in hand, to ask to borrow money. The US loaned Mexico the money but insisted on several economic and electoral reforms in exchange. Those reforms really helped to jump start the Mexican economy and turned it into one of the star performers in Latin America not to mention it helped cement real democracy in Mexico.

[RGBVideo]

Originally posted by Spiffor

He did put his foot in the mouth.

He didn't mean that Muslims would become a majority in Sweden in the forseeable future.

like most of the e-mail reply, this is bs spin

We must be open and tolerant towards Islam and Muslims because when we become a minority, they will be so towards us

WHEN, not IF. It's not hypothetical.